The Attitudes of Anesthesiologists towards the Problems Associated with Pediatric Anesthesia |
Tae Hu Hwang, Jong In Han, Mi Jeung Gwak, Gaab Soo Kim, Chi Hyo Kim, Hee Soo Kim, Tae Hun An, Ki Young Lee, Chan Jong Chung |
1Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, School of Medicine, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea. hanji@ewha.ac.kr 2Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, College of Medicine, Ulsan University, Ulsan, Korea. 3Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea. 4Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea. 5Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, College of Medicine, Chosun University, Kwangju, Korea. 6Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea. 7Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, College of Medicine, Dong-A University, Busan, Korea. |
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Abstract |
BACKGROUND Anesthesiologist must be aware of the common problems that occur in pediatric anesthesia. The purpose of this survey was to collect information to help improve the quality of pediatric anesthesia by comparing the opinions of anesthesiologists that treat children and those that do not treat children. METHODS: A questionnaire surveying the attitudes of 103 anesthesiologists with regard to pediatric problems was analyzed. The questionnaire inquired about the number of years worked in field, the form of work and the responsibilities with regard to the pediatric anesthesia. Each question was rated from 1 (very infrequent) to 5 (very common) for the frequency of problems and from 1 (not importance) to 5 (very important) for the importance of the problem. Then we calculated the average of each item and combined the scores to obtain an average frequency and an average importance. RESULTS: The list of problems had high combined scores for preoperative anxiety (10.62), incision pain (9.59), postoperative agitation (9.53), hypothermia (9.40), and vomiting (9.30) for the pediatric anesthesiologist group. In addition, the problem list had high combined scores for propofol injection pain (11.25), preoperative anxiety (10.92), vomiting (10.17), hypothermia (9.44), and postoperative agitation (9.42) for the non-pediatric anesthesiologist group. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study showed a difference in the pediatric and non pediatric anesthesiologist groups for propofol injection pain. Differences were noted for the average importance (2.34 : 2.80) compared to the average frequency (3.93 : 4.01). The pediatric anesthesiologists regarded propofol injection pain to be less of a problem than did the anesthesiologists who did not care for pediatric patients. |
Key Words:
anesthesia, frequency, importance, pediatric, problem |
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